


You Are Jesse Faden's Brother

by KipRussel



Series: Grow Brighter continuity [4]
Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Polaris is mentioned, Post-Canon, Post-Game, a follow up to my previous oneshot, and part of grow brighter continuity, attempting to make heads or tails of feelings and resonance beings, being dodgy when talking about his feelings doesnt help, breakfast sandwiches self loathing and family support, but stands alone just fine i think, could probably be T but just know like. it gets heavy ksjdhkjhsf, dylan is already pretty vague and odd in his speech, dylan is awake, faden siblings got some hurt in 'em, jesse gets it tho in multiple ways, new york city food trucks have good bagels, no beta readers we die like we got a mail tube thrown at our head, rated M cause the convo gets kinda heavy, sibling morning therapy and breakfast foods, unintentional confrontation of trauma from both people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29481963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KipRussel/pseuds/KipRussel
Summary: “You were expecting Dylan.”“...you are Dylan.”“Not your Dylan.”Jesse fails to find a response, let alone a thought, to make heads or tails of his meaning. Usually, she knows her brother better than anyone else, even when he dips into the far reaches of speech and thought.(Dylan picks through his rattled thoughts with Jesse the morning after a nightmare that left him shaken. Despite leaving the House and Hiss behind him, it all still haunts his waking (and sleeping) moments. Jesse tries to help him make sense of it all.)
Relationships: Dylan Faden & Jesse Faden
Series: Grow Brighter continuity [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033119
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	You Are Jesse Faden's Brother

**Author's Note:**

> (This is set the morning after "A Bell Cannot Be Unrung" and part of Grow Brighter continuity, but you don't need to read either for this piece, just be willing to accept Dylan's awake, the Oldest House lockdown is lifted, and he and his sister share a NYC apartment.) Rated M for some heavier emotional discussions, just in case.

Jesse awakes with a jolt of confusion. Her head lolls forward like a weight, and she blinks herself awake, sitting up straighter, taking in her surroundings. It takes a moment to recognize the room— her brother’s room— a new room, in their shared apartment. The night comes back to her as she stretches out her spine. She must’ve fallen asleep sitting up. She had heard Dylan talking to himself, panicked, from her room, and come to make sure he was alright. Whatever horror had gripped him that night left him shaken, and she stayed at the foot of his bed to keep him grounded. 

Now, however, she’s alone. The blankets at the other end of the bed are peeled back, pillow discarded on the floor. The clock on the side table dimly shines a green _8:24 AM_ in the dark. She can’t remember if Dylan ever dozed back off as well. Clambering off the sunken mattress and onto her feet, she quietly hopes whatever clung to him last night in his dreams has long left him.

She shuffles out the doorway in her socks, hair hanging loose in her face. She spots Dylan in the small living room connected to their kitchen, buried under a pile of blankets on the couch. Whether he woke up before her and found his way out here, or was awake the whole night, she isn’t sure. She figures, at least, he must’ve gotten up a while ago, as he looks settled and firmly planted there.

“Hey,” she yawns.

He doesn’t respond, barely moving. His finger traces a slow pattern across the fabric of the cushions. 

“You feeling okay?” she tries again. 

He shrugs half-heartedly this time.

“Eaten yet?” she plods on, carving her way into the kitchen in her socks and pajamas. The fridge light illuminates the tile floor as she pulls it open, and reveals little else on the shelves.

 _Crap. Buying groceries. We were supposed to do that._ After all the days at the Bureau, fast food outings, and even life on the move before that, the idea of consistently stocking the shelves has long slipped Jesse’s mind. She checks the cupboards, and finds little else of promise.

Jesse crosses to the window, pushing the kitchen chair Dylan dragged over on their first day to people-watch, bird-watch, cloud-watch, and everything-watch. She pulls back the curtains, scanning the street for one of the food trucks that pass by, looking for customers.

Outside, rows of cars line the curbs, parked illegally and squeezed in as tight as possible. People shuffle past wrapped in coats and hats and on scooters and skateboards or staring at cars they can no longer safely back out onto the street. She glances up at the cold blue sky dotted with grey flat clouds. In the distance, on the skyline, she can see the Oldest House. It feels weird, but comforting, knowing she’s one of the few that can see it on the skyline. It’s also a reminder that despite her rare day off, work is still waiting for her.

And still no food truck.

“Do you have any breakfast ideas?” she yawns. She lets the curtain fall from her hand, turning slowly to glance over her shoulder. She can barely pick her brother out from the pile of blankets. Silence fills the room, stretching on.

“You must be disappointed,” Dylan breaks it suddenly, mumbling from the couch. Jesse spends a few seconds trying to catch his meaning, but gets nowhere.

“About what?” she questions, glancing back over her shoulder. “Breakfast?” she jokes halfheartedly.

Dylan picks idly at the edge of the sofa.

“In my dream last night,” he changes the subject, “I kept coughing up sand. Red sand. I couldn’t stop. It killed everybody. And the coughing never helped. It wouldn’t stop.”

“Was I disappointed in your dream…?”

“You were dead in my dream.”

“Ah.”

“That’s what _everybody_ means,” he glares at her before dipping his gaze back to the floor. He watches the dust move through the light filtering in from the window. Jesse sways slightly by the curtains, glancing out again.

“I’m not sure what you think I’m disappointed about,” she says finally. She opens her mouth and pauses, trying to pick her next words carefully, before throwing the whole idea out. She lowers slowly into the chair next to the window. Dylan shrinks in on himself some, voice quieting.

“You spent all those years trying to find me.” He doesn’t elaborate any further, like it’s obvious what he means. Like she must know. Jesse tilts her head, hoping for even just a bit more information.

“I’m… not following. I wanted to find you, and I found you.”

“Mmm,” he hums idly; a disappointed, resigned sound. He breathes in, and lets the words catch in his throat, exhaling, going back to his steady task of picking at the couch cushions. Jesse can almost sense his thoughts, his meaning— _don’t make me say it._

“Why do you think I’m disappointed?” she probes, folding her legs up underneath her.

“You were expecting Dylan.”

“...you _are_ Dylan.”

“Not your Dylan.”

Jesse fails to find a response, let alone a thought, to make heads or tails of his meaning. Usually, she knows her brother better than anyone else, even when he dips into the far reaches of speech and thought. (The House has already trained her to eye phrases of speech like this with suspicion, but Polaris does nothing, and her gut tells her this is just a figure of speech, and not Dylan being literal). So... she gives Dylan the space to explain.

 _Try to just hear him_ _out. You don’t have to jump in. He might just need an ear. You have, too. We both kinda suck at the ‘talking about emotions’ thing. Give him the space._

He waits the silence out, until he can’t anymore.

“You were looking for 10 year old Dylan.”

“...and you’re…?” she prompts. Dylan suddenly gets timid, voice wafer thin and quiet.

“Nothing like that,” he mumbles. “P6… not Dylan… made sure of that,” he echoes himself from when they first reunited, voice falling into the same cadence, but muttered indistinctly under his breath.

Jesse lets the weight of that assumption settle in her chest.

She doesn’t feel disappointed. She doesn’t think he’s anything other than her brother. But she can trace that train of thought. She’s walked that train of thought herself, leaving Ordinary and out into the world alone. Questioning everything, everyone, herself.

A different experience. But the same tune, nonetheless.

“That doesn’t mean you’re not my brother,” Jesse starts.

“What do you know?” he mumbles, glaring up from the couch, cheek sunk into the cushions.

“You’re not—”

“I _am_ different,” Dylan cuts her off before she can even start. “The Bureau changed me. The Hiss. I— I…,” Dylan trails. “I… I’m not who I was anymore. I don’t know if I can go back. I feel like… like I came out _wrong._ ”

Jesse swallows, lowering her leg and bouncing it on the floor. _Listen,_ she reminds herself. She leans forward, laying her elbows flat on her knees, resisting the urge to somehow just pull her brother into a hug and take all the pain away from him. She knows she can’t, but she wants to help. To carry what she can alongside him.

“You were looking for quiet, happy, ‘joy to have in class’ Dylan. Instead you got… whatever I became. A murderer,” he scowls, voice raw, an old sob threatening to escape.

“Dylan—”

“Every day was the same. There _wasn’t_ days. I didn’t know how old I was till you told me. That it’d been 17 years. I had to do the math. The _Bureau_ decided I was a lost cause and locked me away. Their shameful project failure. Too dangerous to give even a shred of humanity to. And they were right. Because I—”

“Dylan, _stop,_ ” Jesse interjects. _It’s not true._

“I gave it all up for the Hiss,” he finishes sharply, sinking further into blankets. “Of course you’re disappointed. Because I don’t know how anything works. I just know sterile cells and dreams and cement and bleeding, burning, Hiss chaos. All I do is make things harder for you. I…”

The words tumbling out stop short. Dylan blinks, the clarity suddenly hitting him. Jesse’s stomach twists in knots.

“ _I’m_ disappointed,” Dylan says quietly. Like he’s only just realized. Like it’s finally hit him. It’s not Jesse. It’s seventeen years. It’s all the blurred days, the haze of the Hiss, the injustice and the hurt and the ache and the anger and the confusion. It’s his emotion. “I’m… this is _grief._ ” He names it, finally, for himself.

The sluggish feeling that had followed him out of the House and seeped into him slowly.

“Don’t you feel it too…?” he whispers. “I feel like the Bureau… like the Hiss took me. Like I’m gone. I’m just… anger and confusion and hurt and I don’t think I can go back. Jesse, I...”

The tension in the room unravels at his revelation, and Jesse realizes he’s waiting for her answer. She stares at the carpet, sorting her thoughts into words, breathing deep. She laces her fingers together and unlaces them, getting into a rhythm, thinking.

“Like… like you feel like you made a mistake somewhere, and lost… _something_ , and you’re scared you’re somehow... ‘ruined’, right?” she says slowly. Dylan shifts on the couch.

“...yeah.”

“I… I’ve been there. Not that it’s the same, but…” Jesse worries she’s making a mistake, somehow, trying to relate their different experiences, and watches him for any reaction, but he doesn’t seem to protest or pull a face, so she continues on. “It’s… there’s no good words for it. It sucks. But feeling like that doesn’t make it reality. The emotion is real, but that doesn’t mean that _why_ you’re worried about is true, somehow. And it gets better. It heals. Like you have. And I have. I’m not… I’m not 11 year old Jesse anymore. I’m glad I’m not. And I never expected to somehow find you unchanged and idealistic. I just wanted to find _you._ ”

Dylan feels his chest ache, but with a different, whole feeling— not whole, bitter, empty grief from before. This one feels like… growing pains. Healing.

“A darker day than the one before doesn’t mean the good days before are ruined. It’s… it looks different, every day. Moving forward. It doesn’t always feel like moving forward, but you are. You do. Some days are just… rest. Some days are figuring out what’s going on before plunging ahead. Even though you just… want to snap your fingers and make it all better right away. The healing hurts sometimes, but it’s still healing. You aren’t— you _can’t_ be 'ruined'. Nothing works like that.”

The angry, bitter, tired voice in his head that tries to counter every sliver of light with pessimism in uncharacteristically silent. He takes a shuddering breath as his sister’s words hit him and sink in, like he’s never heard them before, like breathing fresh air for the first time (like leaving the Bureau and seeing the sky and sun again).

“You _are_ Dylan Faden. Nothing is ever going to take that from you. Ever. And no matter what happens, you’re always my brother. And I’m always going to love you because of that. And it’s not going to change, even if other things do. Nothing else is going to push me away. And I’ll be here for you, as best as I can be. I love you, Dylan. That’s the whole of it.”

Dylan rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms, pushing away tears with a deep, shuddering breath. It feels like waking up, like rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He looks his sister in the face, for the first time this morning, and sees the honesty and truth in her eyes. He watches Polaris spin gently around her head, echoing the same sentiments. He believes them both.

The weight, he realizes, is gone. Or rather… he didn’t realize it had gone away at all. Like suddenly realizing a pain has dulled to the point of vanishing, but not being sure at what point it even stopped. 

The ache is gone. After carving away at him all this time. He just had to… unravel it. Get it out in the air, into the light, out of the darkness, where it tried to eat away at him from the inside out. Somewhere where he could see it clearly, identify the moving parts, the whole grief. Somewhere where another pair of eyes could take it and make it easier to understand, easier to look at, to digest. Someone who could see the growth he was living better than him.

The final wisping tendrils of last night’s nightmare release him. He can breathe again, the fog clearing from his mind.

The feeling is still there— but like most scary things, it’s not as hard to look at in the light. When all the mechanisms are becoming more clear, something understood. It’s less frightening to face it with someone who understands. To face it armed and ready, instead of sliding back into the unnumbered, unknown, monotonous days. A paradoxical feeling— a peace, despite the heavy ball of emotions settling in his chest.

Hope. He can feel the hope.

There’s still plenty of days ahead to face. The tangle of thoughts and anger and grief and trauma is still twisted and full of thorns. But the days ahead don’t seem so daunting anymore.

Dylan smiles slightly at his sister, eyes carrying more of the joy than the smile itself. She smiles back, before tossing a throw pillow at him. He just lets it hit him and chuckles.

“If any of that makes sense,” Jesse adds.

“Yeah. It… yeah,” Dylan says, finding his voice again. “I… sorry— it— this— I… I can’t—” he rubs his eyes again.

“ _Don’t_ apologize. I’ll throw something besides a pillow at you.”

“Fine,” he half-laughs again. “Sor— I’m not gonna say it, _don’t_ throw that.” He sits up slightly as Jesse scoops up an empty water bottle off the floor and brandishes it. She lowers it slowly as he rolls his eyes.

They sit in the sunlight for a moment and let the peace of morning sink in.

“You said something about breakfast,” Dylan says eventually, stretching out on the couch. Jesse rocks up onto her feet and pulls the curtains back again, and Dylan makes a show of recoiling at the sudden brightness.

“That bagel truck with all the sandwiches and stuff is finally back. You wanna get that?”

“I’m not changing,” Dylan says lazily, still covered in a cocoon of blankets.

“Me either. I don’t care if anyone sees me like this, are you kidding? It’s too early. I’m just gonna get my sandwich and come back,” she answers, crossing the room to search for her wallet. Dylan rolls off of the couch, letting all the blankets pile on the floor.

“I’m not wearing shoes out either,” he says, almost a threat.

“If you wanna get frostbite, that’s your choice,” she scoffs, pulling on a sweatshirt and dumping her keys and wallet into her pockets. Dylan shuffles up behind her in flannel pajama pants and an oversized _I Heart NYC_ shirt Arish bought him as a joke.

“You’re just jealous you can’t handle the cold,” he deadpans.

“Yes, my decision to wear socks and shoes in 30 degree weather isn’t based on our years of snow days and frozen temperatures or comfort, but my _tolerance for the weather_ ,” she rolls her eyes, stomping into her spare pair of boots by the door.

“Exactly. See, you get it,” Dylan smirks.

“Shut up,” Jesse smiles. Dylan grins back innocently, shutting the door behind them as they step out into the hall, and descend the steps toward the street, leaving the mire of the night before behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like their voices/manner of speaking started to get away from me a bit, so I hope I got them both right this go round <3


End file.
